GELFAND’S WORLD - The silly squabble that Donald Trump has provoked with Canada is now about to claim even more victims. This time, it’s your neighbors and maybe even yourselves. It’s also a remarkable piece of hypocrisy on the part of the Republican establishment.
The issue is that lots of U.S. residents have been using Canadian pharmacies as the source of otherwise extremely expensive prescription drugs. Now the U.S. is telling these people that there will be a ban on such imports as of October 22. You can read one description here. To make it easier, I will copy and paste 3 paragraphs that are descriptive:
“What’s Changing
“Entry will be prohibited if the medication being imported is commercially available in the United States — even when it costs significantly more — or if the supplying company specifically markets to Americans.
“These restrictions will apply to pharmaceutical parcels sent by pharmacies anywhere outside the United States. Taken together, they are expected to effectively close the personal-importation pathway that millions of Americans have relied upon for more than 25 years to obtain safe and affordable medications. We are shocked and deeply disappointed”
Let’s agree in advance that U.S. consumers shouldn’t have had to go looking to foreign distributors for competitive prices on drugs. They should have been able to find them right here in the United States. But this has not been the case, as many of you know. On the other hand, the Canadian system is more rational and fair from the consumer standpoint, so many of our people took advantage of that fact.
There is a huge hypocrisy here from the standpoint of our political establishment, and it applies to both sides of the aisle. Republicans and Democrats have both had the chance to rationalize drug procurement by enforcing a freer market. Progress has been – shall we say – microscopic. The federal government has recently engaged in a low level, limited process of negotiating slightly lower prices for Medicare, and only for a limited number of drugs.
We might take note that the process, were it allowed to work more widely, would be effective. The evidence is that government mandated price cuts on injectable insulin really work. (The price of insulin was an open scandal for a long time until political pressure finally became too much.)
The conservative think tanks and political operatives like to brag that they support free markets and open competition. In doing so, they imply that they are more serious about this and morally superior to the Democrats. It does not appear to be so.
OK all you Republican lawmakers, how about allowing Medicare to negotiate in the free market for the best prices on all prescription medications? The same question goes to the Democrats.
One more thing: How about all those candidates who vow to reduce spending by getting rid of fraud and waste? If ever there was waste, it is right here in drug pricing. The evidence is straightforward and easy to obtain. Just look at drug prices that governments pay in Europe, Canada, and Asia.
We should recognize that this latest attack on Canada is actually an attack on individual Americans. In this way, it differs quite a bit from the previous approach. A lot of the damage done by U.S. tariffs was on a widespread, economy-wide scale because it was due to retaliatory tariffs by the target countries. For example, China stopped buying soy beans from U.S. sources. China was attempting to do a surgically precise process of punishing areas in the U.S. that supported Trump in his election campaign and which also were likely to feel pain from retaliatory tariffs: Hence Republican voting states which also export soy beans. When Trump applied broadly based tariffs against Canadian goods, the Canadians organized a consumer and retail boycott of U.S. goods such as bourbon whiskey. Note that bourbon comes from a pretty conservative area of the country, so the bourbon boycott follows the Chinese model.
Putting it briefly, the cycle of imposed U.S. tariffs followed by retaliatory tariffs against U.S. goods were at the national level and were industry-wide, with the intended effects aimed at entire national economies. The latest attack may harm a few pharmaceutical distributors, but the main victims are your neighbors who need prescription medications.
Here is something to remember: There is no rational basis for Trump’s attacks on Canada and on Canadian business. The two countries have had an amicable relationship for a couple of centuries, have been active trading partners, and have been active members of a military alliance going back to the first world war. The statements and actions by Donald Trump in his second term reflect some weird motivation that should never have been allowed to determine any actions in the real world. It’s long since time that the rest of us make it clear to Trump and his enablers that actions taken against Canada, Greenland, and other allies are not only irrational, they are damaging and dangerous.
So, we ought to be asking, when will Trump’s supporters in the Republican Party start talking back to him, at least about this topic, and on behalf of the American consumer?
We should hope that the Taco rule (Trump Alway Chickens Out) will once again come into play with respect to this latest action. What’s sad is that we have to rely on the Taco rule at all.
Addendum
Ukraine has been holding its own against Russian aggression. This is not without tragedy and death, but the increasing level of Ukrainian drone technology has allowed for strikes deep into the Russian Federation. We’ve been hearing about strikes on Russian warehouses, chemical and munitions plants, and oil refineries. We should be celebrating these as battlefield victories.
But this effort damages Putin’s plans and embarrasses the Russians. So what is our government’s response?
Trump is telling Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries!. Here is a link from The Hill.
So remember this whenever Trump complains about his critics referring to “Russia, Russia, Russia.”
The complain that Trump was in Putin’s back pocket came about because it was consistent with Trump’s behavior. This latest Trumpian demand is also consistent with continuing obedience to Putin.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
